Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1887-03-31
THE NEW SOUTH"
ITS TRUE COLORS = SENATOR
SHERMAN'S TREATMENT
AT A SOUTHERN
HOTEL.
Paid His Bill and Left.

~Ooen "hooC pun PVoCS hcIo muIo pdCl-
fie than those of Senator Sherman. He
has not made political progress through
the Solid South, and has been as quiet as
apublic man could be, but be means some
thing in this country, and everybody
knows it. On his way North, having
passed through Florida to Cuba and re,
turned, lie naturally proposed to spend a
few days in that part of the South where
the newBess is said to be most remark
able. and so found himself in Birming+
ham, Alabama, at the Florence Hotel.
And here the solid South pulled off its
mask in very simple way. Mr.. Shert
man is one of the few men in this or
any country entitled to be called states
man. He is the recognized leader of
the Republican party in the u S. Sent
ate in all that touches business. As a
pr0tectionist be was q welcome visitor
to the syndicates that are booming the
iron district of Alabama, and he had a
reception. and ovation. The air was full
of good will.
But the foundation of the Southern
social and political structure is, that the
essential part of slavery remains-that
the black man is the political serf of the
white man, and tolerated only because
the white man votes for him; that the
South got great bargain in adding the
extent of the full strength of the State
of New York. in Congress and the EIec-
toral College, through the enumeration
of citizens, growing out of the alleged
abolishment of slayery-and when the
Mike Mullen method of disfranchise
ment of cOlored men does not answer,
the John Tosney process is employed,
and thus the solid South Is maintained,
the most gigantic fraud IN political his
tory, and directly at war with the con-
stitution of the United States.
While Sherman, the protectionist, was
being received by the boomers of Birm-
ingham as very agreeable and desira-
ble sort of public man to have about the
house. the fact that Sherman was Re-
publican and believed In the equal
rights of men, and was faithful to the
strict construction of the amendments
of the constitution, was not much taken
into consideration.
An accident caused an incident which
sheds very instructive light upon the
situation. Some colored citizens desir-
ed To pay their respects to senator Sher.
man. They had prepared little ad-
dress to be sent to him at Nashville, and
6nding him in their midst desired to see
him. He appointed an hour to meet
them, and they were refused admission
to the hotel. The Senator was not al
lowed to see friends who called upon
him. because they were black men.
They were men of education, and pos
sessed of all the elements of good citi-
are guaranteed equal
rights with whites by the Constitution
of the United States. Notwithstanding
their previous condition of servitude.
Of course Mr.. Sherman paid his bill,
and sought another shelter, and the new
form of the "irrepressible conflict" ap-
pears.
This shows the existence of condi.
tioDs upon which the peaceful passions
and goodness of the Solid South depend. |
One of them is the recognition of the
old system of caste 10 the South anoth>
er that the blacks must be politically as
we'll as socially an inferior or servile |
race, or the old master class will reas
sert all its ancient privileges except the |
breeding and buying and selling of men,
women and children with the old fash
ioned ferocity; another that the actual |
practical meaning of the abolishment of |
slavery is that the blacks shall have
equality of enumeration, and must vote
as the whites tell them or be voted for
by those who we're of the blood of the |
rebellion and the Confederacy; another
that the fraud that loads the dice for
the Democratic party, and assigns to it |
for its crimes all the electoral votes it |
wants save ifty-two to command the
Presidency. is to be perpetuated by force;
and that in the contest of 1888 vote. in
Georgia or Alabama shall count twice
as much as one cast in Ohio or Indiana.
1t is in confirmation, extension and
of the system of caste op-
preston and fraud in the Solid South
that the Democratic party takes the field
for 1888, the stake this time not the
Presidency alone. but both Houses of
Congress as well, and the reorganization
Of the Supreme Court so as to give the
old Confederate Interpretation of the
of the United States, and
wipe out the limitations of reconstruc-
ton upon the present form of the slave
Com. Gazette.